“He who envies now thy state,
Who now is plotting how he may seduce
Thee also from obedience; that with him,
Bereaved of happiness, thou mayst partake
His punishment,—eternal misery!”
Milton.
Bright and joyous was the aspect of nature on a spring morning in the beautiful county of Somersetshire. The budding green on the trees was yet so light, that, like a transparent veil, it showed the outlines of every twig; but on the lowlier hedges it lay like a rich mantle of foliage, and clusters of primroses nestled below, while the air was perfumed with violets. Already was heard the hum of some adventurous bee in search of early sweets, the distant low of cattle from the pasture, the mellow note of the[6] cuckoo from the grove,—every sight and sound told of enjoyment on that sunny Sabbath morn.
Yet let me make an exception. There was one spot which reserved to itself the unenviable privilege of looking gloomy all the year round. Nettleby Tower, a venerable edifice, stood on the highest summit of a hill, like some stern guardian of the fair country that smiled around it. The tower had been raised in the time of the Normans, and had then been the robber-hold of a succession of fierce barons, who, from their strong position, had defied the power of king or law. The iron age had passed away. The moat had been dried, and the useless portcullis had rusted over the gate. The loop-holes, whence archers had pointed their shafts, were half filled up with the rubbish accumulated by time. Lichens had mantled the grey stone till its original hue was almost undistinguishable; silent and deserted was the courtyard which had so often echoed to the clatter of hoofs, or the ringing clank of armour.
Silent and deserted—yes! It was not time alone that had wrought the desolation. Nettleby Tower had stood a siege in the time of the Commonwealth, and the marks of bullets might still be traced on its walls; but the injuries which had been inflicted by the slow march of centuries, or the more rapid visitation of war, were slight compared to those which had been wrought by litigation and family dissension. The property had been for years the subject of a [7]vexatious lawsuit, which had half ruined the unsuccessful party, and the present owner of Nettleby Tower had not cared to take personal possession of the gloomy pile. Perhaps Mr. Auger knew that the feeling of the neighbourhood would be against him, as the sympathies of all would be enlisted on the side of the descendant of that ancient family which had for centuries dwelt in the Tower, who had been deprived of his birthright by the will of a proud and intemperate father.
The old fortress had thus been suffered to fall into decay. Grass grew in the courtyard; the wallflower clung to the battlements; the winter snow and the summer rain made their way through the broken casements, and no hand had removed the mass of wreck which lay where a furious storm had thrown down one of the ancient chimneys. Parties of tourists occasionally visited the gloomy place, trod the long, dreary corridors, and heard from a wrinkled woman accounts of the moth-eaten tapestry, and the time-darkened family portraits that grimly frowned from the walls. They heard tales of the last Mr. Bardon, the proud owner of the pile; how he had been wont to sit long and late over his bottle, carousing with jovial companions, till the hall resounded with their oaths and their songs; and how, more than thirty years back, he had disinherited his only son for marrying a farmer’s daughter. Then the old woman would, after slowly showing the way up the worn[8] stone steps which led round and round till they opened on the summit of the tower, direct her listener’s attention to a small grey speck in the wide-spreading landscape below, and tell them that Dr. Bardon lived there in needy circumstances, in actual sight of the place where, if every man had his right, he would now be dwelling as his fathers had dwelt. And the visitors would sigh, shake their heads, and moralize on the strange changes in human fortunes.
The old woman who showed strangers over Nettleby Tower lived in a cottage hard by; neither she nor any other person was ever to be found in the old halls after the sun had set. The place had the repute of being haunted, and was left after dark to the sole possession of the rooks, the owls, and the bats. I must tax the faith of my readers to believe that the old tower was actually haunted; not by the ghosts of the dead, but by the spirits of evil that are ever moving amongst the living. I must attempt with a bold hand to draw aside the mysterious veil which divides the invisible from the visible world, and though I must invoke imagination to my aid, it is imagination fluttering on the confines of truth. Bear with me, then, while I personify the spirits of Pride and Intemperance, and represent them as lingering yet in the pile in which for centuries they had borne sway over human hearts.
Standing on the battlements of the grey tower, behold two dim, but gigantic forms, like dark clouds,[9] that to the eye of fancy have assumed a mortal shape. The little rock-plant that has found a cradle between the crumbling stones bends not beneath their weight,—and yet how many deep-rooted hopes have they crushed! Their unsubstantial shapes cast no shadow on the wall, and yet have darkened myriads of homes! The natural sense cannot recognise their presence; the eye beholds them not, the human ear cannot catch the low thunder of their speech; and yet there they stand, terrible realities,—known, like the invisible plague, by their effects upon those whom they destroy!
There is a wild light in the eyes of Intemperance, not caught from the glad sunbeams that are bathing the world in glory; it is like a red meteor playing over some deep morass, and though there is often mirth in his tone, it is such mirth as jars upon the shuddering soul like the laugh of a raving maniac! Pride is of more lofty stature than his companion, perhaps of yet darker hue, and his voice is lower and deeper. His features are stamped with the impress of all that piety abhors and conscience shrinks from, for we behold him without his veil. Human infirmity may devise soft names for cherished sins, and even invest them with a specious glory which deceives the dazzled eye; but who could endure to see in all their bare deformity those two arch soul-destroyers, Intemperance and Pride?
“Nay, it was I who wrought this ruin!” exclaimed[10] the former, stretching his shadowy hand over the desolated dwelling. “Think you that had Hugh Bardon possessed his senses unclouded by my spell, he would ever have driven forth from his home his own—his only son?”
“Was it not I,” replied Pride, “who ever stood beside him, counting up the long line of his ancestry, inflaming his soul with legends of the past, making him look upon his own blood as something different from that which flows in the veins of ordinary mortals, till he learned to regard a union with one of lower rank as a crime beyond forgiveness?”
“I,” cried Intemperance, “intoxicated his brain”—
“I,” interrupted Pride, “intoxicated his spirit. You fill your deep cup with fermented beverage; the fermentation which I cause is within the soul, and it varies according to the different natures that receive it. There is the vinous fermentation, that which man calls high spirit, and the world hails with applause, whether it sparkle up into courage, or effervesce into hasty resentment. There is the acid fermentation; the sourness of a spirit brooding over wrongs and disappointments, irritated against its fellow-man, and regarding his acts with suspicion. This the world views with a kind of compassionate scorn, or perhaps tolerates as something that may occasionally correct the insipidity of social intercourse. And there is the third, the last stage of fermentation, when hating and hated of all, wrapt up in[11] his own self-worship, and poisoning the atmosphere around with the exhalations of rebellion and unbelief, my slave becomes, even to his fellow-bondsmen, an object of aversion and disgust. Such was my power over the spirit of Hugh Bardon. I quenched the parent’s yearning over his son; I kept watch even by his bed of death; and when holy words of warning were spoken, I made him turn a deaf ear to the charmer, and hardened his soul to destruction!”
“I yield this point to you,” said Intemperance, “I grant that your black badge was rivetted on the miserable Bardon even more firmly than mine. And yet, what are your scattered conquests to those which I hourly achieve! Do I not drive my thousands and tens of thousands down the steep descent of folly, misery, disgrace, till they perish in the gulf of ruin? Count the gin-palaces dedicated to me in this professedly Christian land; are they not crowded with my victims? Who can boast a power to injure that is to be compared to mine?”
“Your power is great,” replied Pride, “but it is a power that has limits, nay, limits that become narrower and narrower as civilization and religion gain ground. You have been driven from many a stately abode, where once Intemperance was a welcome guest, and have to cower amongst the lowest of the low, and seek your slaves amongst the vilest of the vile. Seest thou yon church,” continued Pride, pointing to the spire of a small, but beautiful edifice, embowered[12] amongst elms and beeches; “hast thou ever dared so much as to touch one clod of the turf on which falls the shadow of that building?”
“It is, as you well know, forbidden ground,” replied Intemperance.
“To you—to you, but not to me!” exclaimed Pride, his form dilating with exultation. “I enter it unseen with the worshippers, my voice blends with the hymn of praise; nay, I sometimes mount the pulpit with the preacher,[1] and while a rapt audience hang upon his words, infuse my secret poison into his soul! When offerings are collected for the poor, how much of the silver and the gold is tarnished and tainted by my breath! The very monuments raised to the dead often bear the print of my touch; I fix the escutcheon, write the false epitaph, and hang my banner boldly even over the Christian’s tomb!”
“Your power also has limits,” quoth Intemperance. “There is an antidote in the inspired Book for every poison that you can instil.”
“I know it, I know it,” exclaimed Pride, “and marks it not the extent of my influence and the depth of the deceptions that I practise, that against no spirit, except that of Idolatry, are so many warnings given in that Book as against the spirit of Pride? For every denunciation against Intemperance, how[13] many may be found against me! Not only religion and morality are your mortal opponents, but self-interest and self-respect unite to weaken the might of Intemperance; I have but one foe that I fear, one that singles me out for conflict! As David with his sling to Goliath, so to Pride is the Spirit of the Gospel!”
“How is it, then,” inquired Intemperance, “that so many believers in the Gospel fall under your sway?”
“It is because I have so many arts, such subtle devices, I can change myself into so many different shapes; I steal in so softly that I waken not the sentinel Conscience to give an alarm to the soul! You throw one broad net into the sea where you see a shoal within your reach; I angle for my prey with skill, hiding my hook with the bait most suited to the taste of each of my victims. You pursue your quarry openly before man; I dig the deep hidden pit-fall for mine. You disgust even those whom you enslave; I assume forms that rather please than offend. Sometimes I am ‘a pardonable weakness,’ sometimes ‘a natural instinct,’ sometimes,” and here Pride curled his lip with a mocking smile, “I am welcomed as a generous virtue!”
“It is in this shape,” said Intemperance angrily, “that you have sometimes even taken a part against me! You have taught my slaves to despise and break from my yoke!”
“Pass over that,” replied Pride; “or balance against[14] it the many times when I have done you a service, encouraging men to be mighty to mingle strong drink.”
“Nay, you must acknowledge,” said Intemperance, “that we now seldom work together.”
“We have different spheres,” answered Pride. “You keep multitudes from ever even attempting to enter the fold; I put my manacles upon tens of thousands who deem that they already have entered. I doubt whether there be one goodly dwelling amongst all those that dot yonder wide prospect, where one, if not all of the inmates, wears not my invisible band round the arm.”
“You will except the pastor’s, at least,” said Intemperance. “Yonder, on the path that leads to the school, I see his gentle daughter. She has warned many against me; and with her words, her persuasions, her prayers, has driven me from more than one home. I shrink from the glance of that soft, dark eye, as if it carried the power of Ithuriel’s spear. Ida seems to me to be purity itself; upon her, at least, you can have no hold.”
“Were we nearer,” laughed the malignant spirit, “you would see my dark badge on the saint! Since her childhood I have been striving and struggling to make Ida Aumerle my own. Sometimes she has snapped my chain, and I am ofttimes in fear that she will break away from my bondage for ever. But methinks I have a firm hold over her now.”
[15]
“Her pride must be spiritual pride,” observed Intemperance.
“Not so,” replied his evil companion; “I tried that spell, but my efforts failed. While with sweet voice and winning persuasion Ida is now guiding her class to Truth, and warning her little flock against us both, would you wish to hearken to the story of the maiden, and hear all that I have done to win entrance into a heart which the grace of God has cleansed?”
“Tell me her history,” said Intemperance; “she seems to me like the snowdrop that lifts its head above the sod, pure as a flake from the skies.”
“Even the snowdrop has its roots in the earth,” was the sardonic answer of Pride.
[1] “What a beautiful sermon you gave us to-day!” exclaimed a lady to her pastor. “The devil told me the very same thing while I was in the pulpit,” was his quaint, but comprehensive reply.